Father Andrew chuckled and sighed again. Very likely he could not have decided himself, from any earthly information, where Lappo was. "Was it Lappo the fruit-seller? Yes, yes. And what is your name?" "Gard Windham." "Good--Well, well! A--mm--And Lappo wasn't your father? Who was?" "I don' know." "Anybody know?" "I guess they don't." "Well, what--that is, dear me! You don't say so! I mean, where'd he get you?" "Got me to the Foundlings. Lappo"--speaking in the way of quiet conversation--"Lappo had fits." "Yes, yes. Ga--" "Gard Windham." Father Andrew fell to patting one fat hand on the back of the other, which gripped the umbrella. It was his habit to pat one hand softly over the other whenever he was giving himself advice, or found himself driven to some conclusion which could not be soothed or softened by any more logical method. "Yes, yes. Dear me!" A life probably of unsanctioned origin. It was apt to be the reason for the closed door and the lost key. They came to the door in the brick wall, and went from the street that murmured sadly with the rain, into the little paved court that murmured sadly with the rain. Then Father Andrew sat down before the Father Superior, whose black eyes glowed and dreamed, and felt himself like a small particle of dust, happy in its humility. "It is as you say," said the Superior. "A door is closed behind it. Consecration is sometimes the more complete." Father Andrew murmured that it was, and thought of the refectory and a salad he knew of with peppers in it. He was used to thinking of salads when he should not be thinking of them. He was sorry for it, and knew that he had no claim to anything but humility. "The face promises and threatens," mused the Superior. "How often is it that the highest that is spiritual is based on the strongest that is worldly." The Superior was a man of symbols and analogies, swarthy of skin and large of frame, one whose conceptions came red from their furnace. Father Andrew's mind was nestled the rather in a certain padded placidity. Moreover, there was the salad, with its peppers. No doubt, if the Superior saw promises of a more than common consecration, and threatenings of peculiar importance in this young person without origin, it was a thing to be expected of the Superior's holy and profound discernment. The Superior's spiritual enterprise was ever extraordinary. He was of such as had from the beginning fought in the vanguard of the Church, and been her glory and adornment. For himself, Father Andrew discerned little further than to feel that his duty of distributing the brotherhood's charities would be easier if every one had the young person's native assurance. He felt that Providence, clearly with a purpose, had bestowed upon himself such limited insight wherewith to be content. It enabled him at least to admire the Superior without limit. He went his way to the salad and the peppers, and Gard remained in the house of the Brotherhood of Consolation.